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| Outside The General Muir at Atlanta's Emory Point |
Outside of New York City, I'm not sure there are many places in America -- much less in the South -- where one can find authentic, homemade matzoh ball soup in a restaurant, especially matzoh ball soup that gets the approval of my Jewish heritage boyfriend. But the matzoh ball soup at The General Muir at Atlanta's Emory Point not only was a mouth-watering first experience with this food, it also got a thumb's up from Justin.
As I sat and sipped on this simple, flavorful appetizer (which in my case was more of a side dish, because I got it with a sandwich ... I'll get to that later), my eyes wandered around the restaurant. I took in everything that read old-school New York: the industrialized green steel beams adorning the ceiling; minimalist black and white tile on the wall and floor; the deli counter overflowing with breads and cakes and pastries. And bagels, of course. The design of The General Muir is so simple that, instead of diners being distracted by pictures and centerpieces and watching the kitchen staff, you focus instead on the food. In fact, my glance about only took a few seconds, and then I was back to another spoonful of matzoh ball soup.
Now, granted, I don't have a basis to compare this soup to. To all my Southern readers with a similar previous experience in the realm of traditional Jewish delicacies, matzoh ball soup is like chicken 'n' dumplings, except without chicken and instead of thick, biscuit-y dumplings soaking up the broth, the carb is a ginormous fist-size ball of matzoh.
Matzoh, by the way, is a non-fermented bread made from water and either wheat, rye, oats, barley or spelt. Since I'm just starting The Meatetarian Eats, I did not get a chance to schedule an interview with the chef and find out exactly which of these grains is turned into matzoh at The General Muir, but maybe one day I'll get a chance to do that. I mean, he's been nominated for James Beard awards. Like, hell-O, I would have to be deaf, mute and blind to not want to talk to him!
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| Clockwise from top: The Last Word, an incredible pastrami sandwich and a bowl of matzoh ball soup |
So, anyway, matzoh ball soup at The General Muir is a massive ball of this matzoh bread that has soaked up a light, buttery, savory broth scattered with scallions and dill. There are a few diced veggies in there, enough to add flavor to the broth (carrots, onions, celery), but the focus is on the matzoh. I liked that. I absolutely hate it when you get a soup and expect it to be full of good stuff (read: pasta, meat, savory flavors) and instead there's an abundance of potatoes and vegetables. This was my kind of mix. And the dill added a nifty depth to the flavor profile, so it wasn't entirely savory flavors.
The soup was a great complement to my sandwich. If you go to The General Muir before 7:30 during its dinner hours, you have the option of ordering an Early Bird Special. Thus, like any good 25-year-old who's secretly a senior citizen, I opted for the special and got my bowl of soup with a half sandwich for 12 bucks.
And I kinda sorta maybe a LOT wish I'd gotten a whole sandwich.
At dinner, your sandwich choices are pastrami or corned beef. With pastrami, you can add liver for an extra dollar. The reuben was not an option for the special, so I went with pastrami on rye with liver. SUCH a good decision, guys.
The architecture of this sandwich was pretty perfect. You know when you go to a restaurant and the whole sandwich is basically six inches of bread and then two pieces of meat and some lettuce in the middle? This was not that. The pastrami sandwich wasn't very big. It had nice, thinly sliced pieces of rye that were so tasty, but because they were skinny gave me a chance to taste what was inside the sandwich.
Unlike a lot of deli sandwiches, instead of getting one-sixteenth-inch shaved slices of pastrami, The General Muir is generous: You get two to three slices of quarter-inch thick slices of pastrami, the size you'd imagine a fancy restaurant slicing off of a prime rib served tableside, that absolutely fall apart in my mouth. I'm pretty sure that's the reason they sliced it so thick; any thinner, and the meat would disintegrate into savory beefy goodness. It had a nice peppery crust to it and what I suspect a housemade spicy dijon spread on one side of the bread. The good kind of dijon, with mustard seeds that get stuck in your teeth.
On the other side of the bread is a thick slab of liver pate. Another thing to cross off my bucket list.
Um, I would go back and just get the liver pate.
On a bagel.
On an everything bagel.
It was that good.
Not overly salty, a tad sweet, but with this delicate texture and flavor balance that melded so perfectly with the smoky cured hue of the pastrami and the sour and spice of the bread and mustard. I mean, this sandwich with the liver could knock everything off the taste bud list: sweet, sour, salty, umami. Yes, I threw in umami, like a "true person who pretends to know everything about food."
Bitter came a little from the pepper, but a lot from the drink I had. Originally I was going to be a "good food critic" and drink just water to cleanse my palate between bites, but then I remembered I am not a food critic, I'm just a chick who likes to eat and likes to write and doesn't get paid for it, so what the hell.
I will say that The General Muir is awesome and brings you a frosted glass bottle of water for you to pour at the table, which is a rustic element that I liked in this industrial setting. But water was not as good as the booze. In true New York fashion (or, at least, being a not at all native New Yorker with only a vague, Hollywood-inspired idea of what New York fashion is), I got the Prohibition-inspired drink on the menu. To me, this epitomized a New York Jewish deli experience: a deli sandwich, matzoh ball soup, and something that at one point was probably illegal.
"I'll have the last word," I told our waitress.
The Last Word, which was pretty fun to order, is not on the online menu, so sadly I don't remember at all what went in it. I do recall that it had gin, which I don't like, and sweet and sour flavors, which I do like, so I decided to be adventurous. Hashtag worth it.
This beverage came served in a quaint stem glass, which served only to bring up more 1920s New York images to my mind. It was a light mint color, had some carbonation and a dark cherry floating in the bottom. It wasn't sweet or sour or bitter: just a pleasant combination of all three. It wasn't a drink that I wanted to take down all in one swallow (too strong), so I was able to sip it in between bites of sandwich and slurps of soup.
I can see why this place is on pretty much every top Atlanta eatery list. Highly recommended, and the prices are pretty reasonable. Now the key is going to be waking up early to go get that bagel I was talking about earlier before work this week ...
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